Winter noticed Sgt. David Poole seated at the end of the bar. He considered inviting the sergeant to join them, but the way Poole hunched over his drink and the sour look on his face told Winter he didn’t want the company. Besides, Ridgeway seemed particularly gloomy tonight and one dark mood at the table was enough for Winter.
Ridgeway drained the bottle of Budweiser. “You want a shot?” he asked Winter.
Winter shook his head.
Ridgeway shrugged. “Forget it, then. Can’t drink that shit alone.”
Winter sipped his beer, his second. Ridgeway waved to Rachel, the waitress, for his fourth. After patiently waiting for almost two hours, Winter sensed that Ridgeway was about to crack.
Ridgeway paid Rachel and sipped the beer. His eyes avoided Winter’s. “Alice is having an affair,” he announced; head down, looking at the table. “She wants a divorce.”
Winter pressed his lips together and sighed. Ridgeway’s first marriage had ended in divorce after eleven years when they both realized they hated each other. Vindictive as hell, his first wife, Cynthia, took him to the cleaners. Ridgeway was still bitter over it. Two years passed before he met Alice and things softened up. Now he and Alice had four years together. Winter guessed the problems had begun about a year ago when Alice, fourteen years younger than Ridgeway, stopped coming to platoon functions with him.
“She’s having an affair with a goddamn fireman,” Ridgeway told him. “Can you believe that? It’s not enough that I have to hear at work how everyone loves those hose jockeys. Now one of them is banging my wife.” Ridgeway’s voice sank lower but became more angry and intense.
Winter didn’t reply. His brother-in-law, Aaron, was a fireman in Portland, Oregon. He tried to think of something to say and failed. He took a long drink of beer instead.
Ridgeway shook his head, continuing to stare at his bottle. “I try to hate her, Karl. You know? Just hate her like I did Cynthia. But I can’t. I love her. If she asked me to take her back, I would, even after all this.”
“All of what?” Winter asked, feeling like he needed to say something.
Ridgeway motioned with his hands. “All of this. The sneaking around. The lying. The not calling.” He paused. “The leaving.”
Winter cocked an eyebrow. Ridgeway looked up and saw his expression. “Yeah,” he admitted. “She moved out a month ago. She is living with the sonofabitch.”
Jesus.Mark Ridgeway can keep a secret.
Winter excused himself to use the restroom and gave Mary a quick call, telling her the situation. She understood, just like he knew she would. They exchanged ‘I love yous’ and he hung up. Her voice comforted him like a blanket. He wrapped it around himself as he joined Ridgeway to hear more about his lost love.
Friday, August 19th
0118 hours
“Easy, goddamnit, easy!” James Mace pushed Andrea away as she snatched at the small piece of saran wrap in his hand. “You’ll get yours, bitch. Now sit down and stop grabbing at me.”
Andrea sat obediently on the edge of the dirty couch and rocked slightly. Forward and back, forward and back. She wrung her hands and stared at him.
Mace shook his head in disgust. “Where’s Leslie?”
“I dunno.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know,” Andrea whined. “After you guys came back from the rip, you left again and then she left. She said you didn’t get much cash. Maybe she went out on East Sprague to work a couple of dates or something.”
“I got plenty of fucking cash!” Mace yelled. He waved the wrapped heroin in front of her. “I got this, didn’t I?”
Andrea hugged herself, rubbing her arms. “Yeah, baby, you did. You are A-Number-One.”
Mace grinned at her. He’d taught her that, how to talk the way the prostitutes in the Philippines did. She only used it when she wanted something, though.
“You shoulda seen it, An. Some doofy-looking guy in his forties was behind the counter. When I stuck that gun in his face, he started to cry!” Mace let out a raucous, croaking laugh. “Fucking cried like a baby!”
Andrea grinned weakly and continued to hug herself and rock.
“You know,” Mace said, “I shoulda put a bullet right through his nose. Blown his fucking face all over the wall!”
He trembled, but not from his desire for a fix. He felt alive. He felt powerful. Like he was a Ranger again.
He should have thought of all this a long time ago.
“Baby…” Andrea pleaded. “I’m hurtin’”
Mace looked at her. “Yeah. All right. Bring me your spoon.”
Andrea scurried into the bedroom. Mace strode to the kitchen counter and pushed aside a pile of dirty plates. They clattered into the partially filled sink. He laid the drugs on the table, took his own works from the cupboard and removed his cooking spoon. He sensed Andrea at his side as he sliced off a thin piece of the brown, tarry substance.
“Here you go, baby,” he whispered. “Here you go, you fucking bitch.”
Andrea didn’t even notice his epithet. She stood, transfixed on the knife as Mace slowly brought it over and scraped the tar onto her spoon. She hurried to the bedroom where she kept the rest of her kit.
Mace put the remaining chunk onto his spoon. He thought briefly of Leslie out on the streets of East Sprague, looking to whore her way to enough cash to score. Well, forget her, then. More for him and Andrea.
Mace stared at the heroin. Sweet Brown. He sighed contentedly. First I get to be a Ranger again and now I get the Sweet Brown.
Goddamn, life was good.
FIVE
Saturday, August 20th
Graveyard Shift
2205 hours
Chisolm cruised slowly along residential streets with his windows open, letting the breeze flow through the police car. The smell of maple trees, freshly cut grass and occasionally the remains of an earlier barbecue wafted through the window.
A week had passed since his dismissal from the FTO program. The event still bothered him and he couldn’t let it go. He was a good trainer. Hart, on the other hand, was a climber and a weasel. The man had no clue what made a good police officer. As a result, Payne, who should be looking for a job at the mall, worked with Bates, who Chisolm didn’t think too highly of, either. A solid officer, but way too easy on recruits. The chances of Payne getting fired while assigned to Bates were almost non-existent, a fact that Hart would have been aware of when he made the assignment.
Chisolm shook his head ruefully. Police officers in this town were asked to do a hard job. It required a compassionate soldier, something Chisolm tried to teach. However, the brass gave guidelines that required something of a cross between a counselor and a customer service representative at a department store. Citizens appreciated being treated that way, but criminals laughed at it.
Suck it up and drive on, you old soldier.No good pissing and moaning.
Chisolm turned onto Division Street and headed north. Aptly named Division, this north-south street divided the city in half, separating Adam Sector from Baker Sector. Chisolm continued north, turning west on Cleveland and dropping down to Corbin Park. A moment later, he realized that he was heading toward Sylvia’s old house.
Purposefully, he turned left and headed back to Buckeye.